Archive for category SALES LEADERSHIP
Does Your Sales Dashboard Have The Right Indicators? (reprise)
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES BEST PRACTICES, SALES LEADERSHIP on September 9, 2013
I posted this article about a year ago and, after a recent discussion with a client, I thought it would be worthwhile to bring it back from the archives to help remind others.
The idea of a sales dashboard is appealing. What business manager wouldn’t like to run their company like a well-oiled machine, with the help of a few select indicators? But in practice, it is ironically the choice of these indicators which can stall the effectiveness of the sales dashboard…
Every company is certainly different, and it goes without saying an industrial equipment maker cannot manage its sales process (for example) like a travel agency, or a service provider. However, here’s some tips on zeroing in on the right indicator can be helpful in the majority of situations.
Choose indicators which are useful throughout the sales process – As the saying goes, you shouldn’t count your chickens until they hatch. Nevertheless, you want to manage your sales process continuously, not just once a quarter. It’s important to avoid indicators which only become meaningful at the end. For example, “Actual/Projected sales” is more useful when compared to its historical average at that stage of the quarter.
Be selective – you start with the laudable intention to stick to the essentials, but find yourself a few months later with a computer screen that looks more like a spacecraft cockpit than the clear-cut dashboard of your dreams. To be more selective, ask yourself this question before adding another indicator to your sales dashboard: is it directly related to what your company is trying to achieve (i.e. prospects progressing along your pipeline), or is it merely informative?
Choose actionable indicators – avoid indicators which look sexy but don’t bring anything tangible to the table. A traditional indicator that clearly points you in the right direction is better than a “sophisticated” one which needs to be explained to everyone and even leaves you scratching your head.
Favor dynamic indicators – one which measures a sales team’s progress. A static indicator only measures an activity. For example, “Number of leads qualified/Week” is a dynamic indicator, while on the same subject “Number of qualification calls/Week” is a static indicator. From this example we can infer that a dynamic indicator is naturally outward-looking (i.e. focused on prospect dynamics) while a static indicator is often inward-looking (i.e. concerned with your team’s processes).
Beware of environmental indicators – those which are focused on your company’s environment (e.g. “Number of RFPs in my sector”) are most certainly outward-looking. Yet, do they belong on your sales dashboard? Not especially. You’re interested in your company’s performance, which only indirectly depends on its environment. Environmental indicators are rarely actionable, unless you are matching them to a triggering threshold. For example, you could decide to re-contact your existing client base systematically when the number of RFPs in your sector falls below a threshold of ten per month.
Certainly there are others, more specific to your particular situation. The objective here is to give you a starting point. Get you thinking about what’s key to steer your sales process to success. As always I’m interested in what you think and what you’ve found to be effective in your sales dashboard. I invite your comments, ideas and suggestions.
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To Move Ahead You Have to Know What to Leave Behind
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES LEADERSHIP on September 3, 2013
Decisions are the most fundamental building blocks of successful change in our organizations, our teams, and our careers. The faster and more strategically we stack those blocks, the faster and more successfully we achieve change. Yet, change efforts often stall precisely because those decisions don’t happen.
The question is why?
Avoid Changing By Addition. The Latin root of the word “decide” is caidere which means “to kill or to cut.” (Think homicide, suicide, genocide.) Technically, deciding to do something new without killing something old is not a decision at all. It is merely an addition.
When an executive announces that her business will change to become a luxury service provider, technically it is not a decision until she also states that they will not provide low cost services to price-sensitive customers anymore.
When a sales manager declares that his strategy this quarter will require his salespeople to spend more time strengthening existing customer relationships, he has only made an addition until he also declares that they should spend less time on something else like hunting for new prospects.
Your palms might be sweating at the mere thought of telling your team to ignore some group of paying customers or to not spend time hunting for new business, even if you really want to see the change happen. Research has shown that making tradeoffs is so mentally exhausting that most people try to avoid them whenever possible. That’s why a manager who is no stranger to long hours and hard work will escape the discomfort simply by piling on new change objectives without killing any of the current priorities.
But this change-by-addition approach can be a death blow.
Avoid Trickle-Down Tradeoffs. When team leaders fail to decide which old directions are going to be sacrificed in service of the new direction, the tradeoff doesn’t magically disappear. It simply slides down the ladder. Instead of the team leader leaning into the discomfort and deciding once that the team is going to spend this quarter strengthening existing customer relationships, and not actively hunting for new prospects, each team member now has to decide for themselves whether to call on an existing customer or go find a new one every time they pick up the phone, open their email, or hop in the car.
Trickle-down tradeoffs create two major problems for change efforts. First, they undermine team alignment toward the change. It is highly unlikely that each team member will independently arrive at the same conclusion about what to do and what not to do. Part of the team will choose to move in one direction while the other part moves in another direction — the very definition of misaligned.
Second, psychologists have shown that making tradeoffs depletes our overall mental capacity and causes us to make poorer judgments in completely unrelated situations. This phenomenon is why otherwise healthy eaters end a long afternoon at the mall of choosing between stylish shoes and comfortable shoes by feasting on a hearty dinner of French fries and Cinnabons. They have no mental energy left to make good dieting decisions.
Similarly, when your team has to spend a long morning making tradeoffs it leads to long afternoons of either staring at the wall and web-surfing, or making poor choices for their customers, their workloads, and their budgets.
To Lead Is To Decide. Making change decisions is a cognitively and emotionally taxing activity that the average person will go to great lengths to avoid. While I have discovered some techniques for increasing the consistency and reliability of our decisions, there is no proven way of completely eliminating the discomfort of making tradeoffs. That might be a key element of what makes great leaders great. Great leaders and change agents have come in all shapes, sizes, colors, genders, and personality types.
But the one thing they all seem to have in common — the one thing that distinguishes them from ordinary people — is their willingness to decide when others could not.
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This article was originally posted on the Harvard Business Review Blog by Nick Tasler on August 7, 2013
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Four Big Mistakes in Managing your Sales Funnel
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES LEADERSHIP on August 30, 2013
Many sales people are familiar with the concept of the “sales funnel,” with the idea that every sale starts with a large pool of prospects, which are eventually narrowed down by the various steps of the sales process (qualification, presentations, proposals, etc.) leading to a much smaller number of customers who actually decide to buy and close the deal.
A big part of success in managing sales leads is developing a better way to understand and manage your company’s sales funnel. Here are a few of the biggest mistakes that small business leaders tend to make in managing their sales funnels – and ideas on how you can get better results.
Mistake #1: Always asking for “more sales leads.” Many companies make the mistake of thinking that they can get better sales results just by constantly engaging in lead generation activities to “dump more leads into the funnel.” This is a costly and inefficient way of getting more sales, because it takes time, effort and investment to find more sales leads. Chances are good that your business can improve your sales results by doing a better job of managing the sales leads you already have, instead of constantly hunting for more and more sales leads.
Mistake #2: Focusing on CRM technology instead of your sales process. Many sales organizations make the mistake of investing in expensive customer relationship management (CRM) software but without a clear understanding of how they want to use the CRM software to improve their sales process. CRM technology can be a valuable tool, but it cannot replace a smart strategy for understanding and adjusting your sales activities to line up with your biggest priorities in your sales process. For example, you as a small business leader need to understand what is happening at every stage of your sales process. Are you failing to generate enough appointments during your initial contacts with new sales leads? Are your sales appointments failing to result in enough follow-up sales presentations? Where in the sales process are you having the most difficulty, and what can you do differently? These are the questions that CRM tools can help you answer, but you can’t rely solely on technology to do the hard work of identifying and fixing the problems.
Mistake #3: Not training your sales team. Sales training is not just for new hires. Sales people need motivation, coaching and a clear idea of what they’re selling and how to adjust to customers’ changing needs and expectations. You have to constantly keep your sales people up to date on the latest ideas and sales techniques. Help your sales team learn from each other and collaborate by sharing their experiences on what works and what doesn’t. Listen to your sales people during their sales calls and offer coaching and guidance on how to improve.
Mistake #4: Not measuring each stage of your sales funnel. Many sales organizations focus too much on their final deal closing ratios, and don’t pay enough attention to the conversion ratios that lead up to the final negotiations with the buyer. Take a look at all stages of your sales process and measure your success rate at each stage. For example, out of 100 sales leads, how many will agree to an initial appointment? How many of those appointments lead to a more extensive sales presentation? Where in your sales process are the biggest successes and the biggest opportunities to improve?
Managing your sales funnel needs to be part of an ongoing effort to see what is happening within your sales process and adjusting along the way. If you have a clear understanding of where your challenges are coming from, which parts of the process need to improve, and constantly coach your sales team to improve their efforts at each stage of your sales funnel, you will start to see a better result in the most important number of all – sales.
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The Five Best Sales Management Tips
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES LEADERSHIP on August 19, 2013
Sales managers must be coaches, strategists, and leaders for their sales teams. Becoming a great sales manager takes more than experience – it also requires continual learning through actively seeking out and following through on sales management tips from others who have been successful. Learn from the five following sales management tips to build your platform for success.
Build Effective Communication Skills to Interact with Others
Sales managers must be able to communicate effectively with sales people at different career stages, their management peers, executives, and prospects and customers at all levels. Each interaction requires tailored communication, which makes this one of the important sales management tips for sales managers to learn. Hone your communication skills through:
– Picking the best medium for messages, whether it be in person, over the phone, or through e-mail.
– Being as concise as possible to communicate your key points.
– Paying attention to body language and other cues to inform and adapt your communication style for maximum impact.
Create Best Practices for Your Sales Team
One common problem for sales managers is a sales team of individuals following different sales processes, which predictably leads to inconsistent sales results. You can make sure that all of your sales people are on the same page by creating a best practices playbook that provides your sales team with clear guidance on how and when sales processes should be completed.
– Develop processes for lead generation and follow up; hold sales people accountable for following guidelines.
– Provide coaching on proven methods of overcoming the objections common to your selling environment.
– Create outlines of your organization’s typical sales cycles that include steps that your sales people should be following with every sale.
Develop Talent From within the Sales Team
Few sales people are a “natural” fit for sales. Even top sales people who make selling look easy are constantly honing their skills and integrating new knowledge. The guidance that you provide to your sales team sets the tone for your sales team’s success, and by developing talent from within your sales team you can ensure that you have all of the components for a flourishing sales team in place. Create a development plan for your sales team that integrates sales management tips like prioritizing coaching time so that the sales people who need your help the most can benefit from your advice and guidance and coaching your sales people on motivation and drive to get your sales team to consistently meet new quotas.
Know Your Business Inside and Out
Make sure that you are ahead of the curve and regularly follow how trends within your industry and the science of selling are evolving. The knowledge that you accrue will allow you to construct a path that leads your sales team in the right direction. In addition, by being able to predict conditions for your marketplace you will be able to create better-informed sales strategies that require less adjustment. This will make your job and the jobs of the sales people reporting to you easier.
Know What’s Important to Your Sales Team
If you want your sales team to deliver, you must understand the needs, concerns, and drives of your sales people. If your sales people feel understood they will have trust in your leadership, be more open to discussing issues, and won’t hesitate to follow your direction. Form these all-important relationships with your sales people with these sales management tips:
– Adopt a policy of transparency to keep your sales people well-informed.
– Treat your sales people consistently and fairly in all interactions.
– Always give more of yourself than you ask of your sales people; they will notice and appreciate the effort you put into the team’s success.
Remember that as a sales manager, your accomplishments are measured by the results that your sales team is collectively able to deliver. Follow these sales management tips to help your sales team thrive.
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This article was originally posted on the SalesForce Search Blog by Doug O’Grady on 8 August 2013.
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A Better Way to Measure Your Sales Team
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES LEADERSHIP on August 12, 2013
It’s time we start measuring sales people on more than just quota attainment. It’s time we start looking at the entire body of work.
Determining what to measure isn’t a daunting task. We don’t need a plethora of complex, confusing and superfluous stats. We just need a few that tell the bigger story;
- Average Deal Size: How good is the sales rep at up selling? How quickly do they discount deals? How strong of a negotiator are they? Average deal size provides insight into how well a sales rep can maintain the integrity of pricing and drive greater value into the sale.
- Winning Percentage: What percentage of opportunities does the sales rep close? How effective are they with the opportunities they get. A higher winning percentage suggests an impressive ability to qualify or add substantial value to the sale. High winning percentages means less leads and opportunities wasted.
- Average Days in Pipeline: Take all the opportunities in the pipeline and add up the number of days they have been in the pipeline, and then divide by the number of opportunities. How long do deals sit in the pipeline? How good is the sales rep at knowing when to stop working a deal and close it? Is their pipeline stuffed with “stuff” that just isn’t going to close? Is there a decent ratio between average days in pipeline and average time to close? There should be.
- Average Time to Close: How long does it take for a sales rep to close a deal from start to finish? Who on your team closes deals faster? Who takes longer? How do average time to close rates compare with quota attainment and overall revenue attainment. Are those with longer sales cycles selling more? Or are those with faster close rates selling more. Average time to close includes both wins AND losses. It’s designed to measure the amount of time it takes a sales rep to bring a buyer to the decision.
- New Opportunities per Month (NOP): Who is best at building their pipeline? Which reps are focused on new opportunities vs. closing existing opportunities? How many new opportunities are your sales people putting into the pipeline each month? NOP is a critical metric few pay attention to. Knowing who is bringing in the opportunities is critical.
- Average Monthly Pipeline Size: What does the pipeline look like from month to month? Who is good at being able to keep it consistent, vs. those who see big shifts as they close, then prospect, then close. Tracking AMPS will allow you to see who is capable of maintaining a strong pipeline while closing deals and driving revenue.
Measuring sales reps around these individual statistics requires nothing more than a commitment to track them, share them and rank the team against them. The information generated around these six stats will change the sales game. Good reps will be found even in bad years, bad reps will no longer be able to hide. One hit wonders will not be able to bask in the glory of a lucky kill. Management will have more information to work with; trends will be easier to spot and opportunities will present themselves.
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Three Keys for Building a Sales Pipeline
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES LEADERSHIP on July 18, 2013
You know what a sales pipeline is and you know that you have one, but how do you build and manage that pipeline to take your sales to the next level? Building sales pipeline success depends on the sales pipeline’s effectiveness, strength, and results, the three keys to building sales pipeline value. Take the first step towards building sales pipeline success by focusing on and managing these three keys to the sales pipeline.
Building Sales Pipeline Effectiveness: Maximize Your CRM System
The customer relationship management system you are using is only as useful as the information you put in. In other words, if you are putting in outdated, incomplete, or otherwise unhelpful data, the CRM will not be able to help you succeed. Yet consistently and properly updated CRM systems are one of the keys to building sales pipeline effectiveness. Make sure that you are using CRM to maximize results by:
– Habitually and thoroughly updating the system with new leads, status on existing leads, and other information as it is acquired.
– Avoiding removal of leads unless those leads are out of business or have requested no further contact. Leads that are unqualified and may be qualified later, or have said no but may be more open in the future, should be flagged with the appropriate time horizon for follow up.
– Checking your CRM daily to guide your activities for prospecting, follow up, and scheduling, and updating your activities as you work.
Building Sales Pipeline Strength: Quality In, Quality Out
A large part of building sales pipeline strength – that is, ensuring that there are healthy numbers of leads, prospects, and closes in the pipeline at all times – rests on getting quality leads into your sales pipeline. Getting as many leads as possible may seem like the right idea, but you will probably find more success in maintaining and building sales pipeline strength if you focus on quality, rather than quantity, of leads. To do this, you can:
– Start qualifying leads before you even make first contact, so that the contact you make can build on information you already have rather than starting at the beginning when you reach a live prospect.
– Be realistic about prospects’ qualifications and readiness to buy. Over optimistic projections can harm your productivity and sales pipeline results.
– Create standard processes for how and when you qualify and prospect for a system that can deliver you reliable results, every time.
Building Sales Pipeline Results: Know What You Need to Do to Reach Your Targets
If you want to reach your sales targets for the month, the quarter, and the year, you need a roadmap to get there. It is not enough to rely on your ability to sell and a constant stream of incoming leads; you need to know how many of each type of lead, prospect, and customer you need to have in your pipeline to reach your sales goals. This is easy to accomplish if you have been tracking your sales and activities over past periods.
– Look at your quarterly performances and analyze how many leads you followed up on, how many of these were viable prospects, how many of these were presented, and how many of these closed.
– Calculate averages for how long converted leads took you to close from the day the lead was initially entered to the day the contract was signed, categorizing these in ranges according to the contribution each made to your targets.
– Use these numbers to determine how many new leads, calls, presentations, and closes you need to have in your pipeline every quarter to meet or beat your targets.
Building sales pipeline effectiveness, strength, and results depends on your ability and commitment to update and maintain your pipeline through various tracking activities. However, the time that you spend on these activities will pay you back with interest as your more targeted approach to selling using the sales pipeline yields results.
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This article was originally posted in the SalesForce Search Blog by Matt Cook on July 9, 2013.
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Five SMB Sales Management Blunders
Posted by Rick Pranitis in SALES LEADERSHIP on June 11, 2013
Hiring a sales staff for your small business comes with the responsibility to provide effective sales management. While many small to medium business entrepreneurs are also good sales people, not every SMB owner has a natural talent for managing a sales team. Here are some of the most common sales management blunders and how you can avoid them.
Mixing Recognition with Coaching. One common sales management blunder is to congratulate your sales force for a job well done and quickly move to areas of improvement. This tactic can often be interpreted by sales staff as a lack of appreciation. A best practice is to separate the recognition from the coaching. Save the performance improvement areas for coaching sessions. Set up separate recognition of your sales rep success even if it’s a small celebration. It’s the little gestures of respect and celebrations of achievement which gain the hearts and minds of the sales force.
No Sales Plan. Another common sales management blunder is: not developing a sales plan to help manage the sales team. A successful sales team requires regular planning tracking, and review to achieve their targeted results. Every sales representative requires their own action plan to direct day-to-day activities and set up accountabilities.
All sales plans have at least three requirements:
· Sales Rep Development: Where most plans fail is they are developed by the sales manager not the sales rep. To ensure a high level of plan acceptance, have the rep develop the plan and guide them toward the right objectives.
· Regular Reporting: Sales plans should be established on a weekly basis to provide flexibility in the planning cycle. Reviewing can take place on a monthly basis. Sales management excellence involves reviewing the results against the plan to determine missed opportunities and areas for improvement.
· Sales Metrics: A successful sales plan focuses on results and activities. Establish the proper sales metrics to drive your business results. Metrics can include: number of client phone calls, number of contacts, appointments set, appointments conducted and sales closed. Do not overwhelm your sales staff with excessive tracking numbers. Focus on the few measures that matter the most to your business.
No Sales Support. A common sales management blunder is to hire a sales person without providing them with the level of support required to succeed. Even if your new rep is well-versed in your industry and a top performer, they will still require help to familiarize themselves with your company, products, and markets.
Not all sales reps require the same level of support. For many small business owners, a hands-off approach to sales management is not the best strategy. Successful sales management requires a commitment to sales force training. Regardless of the size of your firm, an investment in sales training and support can pay big dividends on profitability. Spending the time one-on-one and in the field with your sales team will not only provide support but convey a sense of the importance of sales people in your organization.
Focus on Control Sales Management. Many new and unsuccessful sales managers will focus on the traditional sales management by intimidation or control approach. The top sales performers know they have a valuable skill set and will quickly walk to a competitor if treated poorly. Sales management is a partnership between the sales rep and the sales manager. Effective sales management requires sharing in the responsibility to find the problems and bottlenecks in your sales process. Seek the solution together with your reps. Be a champion for helping them achieve their agreed results.
Lacking Sales Accountability. There will be times when sales reps fail regardless of the support and training they receive. It is easy to pass off the lack of results to external forces such as competitors, the economy, or poor marketing. Remember the sales rep was hired to bring in sales. When support, training, and market potential are available, a lack of results often means it’s the rep’s performance.
A lack of performance can be traced back to your sales management program. If your small business lacks a clear policy of sales accountability, it remains your responsibility to implement the process. Creating a culture of sales accountability will not happen overnight. Expect to lose sales staff. A Sales person who has underperformed and will not accept personal responsibility for their own results will leave. This is a good thing. A sales accountability culture only accepts top performers – which is exactly what your business needs to survive in a competitive market.
Growing a small business is hard work. The sales management function is often overlooked by small business owners. Spending the necessary time wearing your sales manager hat will help foster a rewarding culture and build a successful sales team to boost your business to new levels.
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Four Reasons You Need to Implement Performance Measurements
Posted by Rick Pranitis in GENERAL DISCUSSION, SALES LEADERSHIP on May 24, 2013
Most business leaders know intuitively they should be using data to measure their organization’s progress and drive future decisions. However, when things get busy, data is often the first item to drop off the radar.
Have you made performance measurements a priority at your organization? When you understand the advantages that monitoring data can offer you may be more willing to make it a consistent priority. Using metrics to set clear, quantifiable goals within your company offers four distinct benefits:
1. Performance measurements help to create focus by offering clear goals. Some departments—such as your sales team—may live and die by their numbers. However, other departments may lack the hard-number goals that keep them motivated to perform. If your team doesn’t have a realistic goal guiding their day-to-day work, they may end up feeling unmotivated and directionless. Numbers give people something to shoot for.
The metrics you choose need to be meaningful. Annual numbers are too abstract, and even quarterly numbers may get ignored until the final two weeks of the quarter. Figure out what defines “success” for each one of your departments and work with your leadership team to pick a metric which tracks that measure of success. For example, does your marketing department keep track of the number of prospects their campaigns bring in the door? Does your technical support team track the average resolution time for their tickets?
By giving everyone a quantifiable number that guides their daily work, you’ll be offering them clear targets for results and setting up your company for consistent success.
2. Using metrics can also help your team grow. Tracking the right data also enables your managers to create accountability by establishing clear expectations for each of their team members. By examining each person’s results, your managers will get a quick snapshot of how each team member is performing in that dimension. Team members who need additional management or training will get the attention they need.
Additionally, within a team setting, performance measurements can also help to create a greater sense of teamwork by increasing camaraderie—and even some healthy peer pressure—to perform.
3. Keeping track of your business metrics is also good for revealing potential problems—before they grow too large. Monitoring performance measurements throughout your company will give you a good feel for how your company is really doing. Potential stumbling blocks will become evident long before they become large issues, allowing you and your team to attack them head-on and solve them proactively. For example, if your tech team is suddenly spending significantly more time closing tickets, you might uncover a system glitch that needs attention before it halts your whole operation.
Using your data to spot problems early on allows you and your team get out in front of your challenges, rather than waiting for them to impact your bottom line.
4. Relying on hard data, your leadership team can reduce the amount of time it takes to make the big decisions. Timely decisions keep your organization on track toward fulfilling its overall vision. By creating a clear set of measurable metrics which are well-defined, easy to track and understood by everyone in your organization, you’ll be able to make informed choices backed by solid data.
It will also get you and your team in the habit of collecting important metrics as you build your business, rather than running around after the fact to collect numbers. These habits enable the clarity and honesty you need to make the right decisions for your business’ future.
One Final Note – we’ve all heard rumors about companies who have gone data crazy and lost their perspective in the process. Performance measures are designed to help you reach your ultimate outcomes, but they’re not your end goal. As you introduce performance measurements into your organization, make sure you do so with the right perspective. Your chosen metrics represent a single dimension of your company’s health. They always need to be assessed with your company’s ultimate vision in mind. In other words, when you’re analyzing data, always ask yourself what you are really trying to achieve—and how this number will get you there. Then, make your decisions accordingly.
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This article originally was posted to the Vistage.com blog by Kevin McArdie on May 23, 2013.
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12 Elements of a Great Sales Playbook
Posted by Rick Pranitis in GENERAL DISCUSSION, SALES LEADERSHIP on May 17, 2013
The implementation of a sales playbook can be one of the most impactful initiatives for any sales organization. There are two reasons for this tremendous ROI. First, by following some simple guidelines, it can be a remarkably easy initiative to implement, and second, research shows that this results in 33% additional revenue.
Here are twelve elements of a great sales playbook that you should use to guide your implementation.
1. Repeatable Winning Sales Processes
The key word here is ‘repeatable’. When everyone adopts the same sales process, there is a common language that is understood, not just by sales, but by the whole organization. Recent research shows that while only 60% of sales teams have a sales process that is well defined, and well executed – those who do are 33% more likely to be High Performers*.
2. Customized to the Buying Cycle
Customers buy in lots of different ways; some purchases are guided by a single decision maker, while in other cases there can be a large buying committee. Some issue RFPs (health-warning!), others invite recognized suppliers to discuss their issues, an increasing number learn in the Social Universe, and just a few remain with the incumbent supplier trading ‘the devil you know’ for potentially more advanced or competitive solutions. Unless you visualize the journey the customer wants to take, you won’t be with them when they reach their destination.
3. Sales Tools in Context at Each Stage
At each stage of the buying process, salespeople need to employ just the right tools – at the right time to advance the sale to the next stage in the process. A B2B sale is not a single event. In fact it is a collection of micro-sales events, each crafted to move closer to the eventual goal. Salespeople are busy and often don’t know which tool they need, where to find it or how to use it at the specific point in the micro-sale. Integrating sales tools into the playbook as part of the sales process is the solution.
4. Industry Sales Process Templates
It is widely accepted that tailoring your sales process to the specific needs of an industry will increase your chances for success. Third party industry sales templates are readily available from suppliers who have been tracking and analyzing millions of sales cycles. That is the catalyst you need to get started.
5. Many Simple and Complex Processes
One playbook or sales process does not fit all. Sometimes you are pursuing a brand new customer or a very large deal that demands a complex and sophisticated set of ‘plays’ to win the deal. In other cases, the transaction might be quick, one that suggests a different rhythm. Your sales playbook should have the requisite intelligence to support that automatically and serve up the right playbook at the right time.
6. Process, Benchmarks and Insight
Benchmarking delivers many advantages for companies looking to improve the performance of their sales organization. Your playbook must capture those benefits, learn from them, and uncover insights that help you to drive your sales velocity. When deploying a playbook, ensure that you have built in a capability that guides you to progress through these stages of evolution for your sales team.
7. Team Visibility for the Sales Manager
Being a front-line sales manager is one of the hardest jobs in sales. It is also the critical link in sales. Unless the sales manager has all the tools he or she needs to easily manage the business, the whole performance of the sales organization could suffer. You need to provide them with the ‘Easy Button’. Sales playbooks are often designed just with the sales person in mind. Remember that the sales manager is the critical link.
8. Integrates with CRM System
This one should be a ‘no-brainer’. The playbook must integrate tightly with the CRM system so when the sales person works with an opportunity, the playbook will always be present, just where it needs to be. That way the playbook (if it is smart enough) can react to the attributes of the opportunity, like the size of the deal, or the products included in the opportunity record to present the right playbook for that opportunity. Complete integration with your CRM delivers the optimum experience for the sales person, and provides sales managers with greater flexibility on how they view the data in the context of the rest of the business. It is important.
9. Informs Sales Forecast Visibility
Salespeople spend about 2.5 hours each week on sales forecasting, and for most companies, the accuracy of sales forecasts leave a lot to be desired. To maximize the impact of your sales playbook on the accuracy of your sales forecast, there are two things to consider. (1) Does the sales playbook incorporate intelligence that objectively monitors the close date of the sale? (2) Does the sales playbook provide the sales manager with insight into deal vulnerabilities and risks in the forecast?
10. Motivational and Visual
There are only two reasons why an individual does not complete a task. Either they do not have the competence, or they are not motivated enough to do it. Think about that – these are the only two reasons. Your sales playbook should improve competence and increase motivation. The competence piece is easily understood.
Motivation is a little more challenging. A study on What Motivates Sales People shows that, perhaps surprisingly for some, compensation is not the primary motivator. ‘Making Progress of Winning’ is ranked by sales people as the main reason they get up in the morning. To entice adoption of the sales playbook (rather than force compliance) your sales playbook needs to provide true value for the sales person – resolve that reward/effort equation, so that the salesperson gets more back from the playbook that they put into it.
11. Social and Collaborative
As B2B companies rely more heavily on social collaboration tools, some of the biggest gainers are going to be salespeople. Sales people who are the leaders in their organization are using social tools such as Chatter in Salesforce to improve collaboration in their own sales teams. Leading sales playbooks help by letting everyone ‘follow’ the plays, contributes to the conversation, and collaborate on the deal. The B2B world is constantly becoming more social and collaborative and you should ensure that your sales playbook accommodates this advancement.
12. Mobile and Cloud
Time is precious, and the sales person’s time is incredibly precious, both to them and to the sales organization looking to maximize the performance of their key quota-bearers. Since so much of a sales person’s time is spent moving between A and B and back again, they should be equipped with the mobility to connect to their sales playbook allowing them to be responsive, productive, collaborative and consistent at any time, wherever they are. In other applications, mobile and cloud capabilities are being leveraged to facilitate access anywhere, anytime. It must be the same with your sales playbook.
Unless mobile and cloud are core elements of your sales playbook plan, the initiative could face severe challenges in a very short term.
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This article was originally posted to the Dealmaker® 365 blog by Donal Daly on May 12, 2013
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Do You Have A 90 Day Sales Rep Success Plan?
Posted by Rick Pranitis in GENERAL DISCUSSION, SALES LEADERSHIP on March 25, 2013
Fortune 500 companies have a structured “On Boarding Process” which every new sales person follows. The plan lays out detailed time lines and benchmarks, specific action items and goals. This formal process is great for both the company and the new representative because it leaves nothing to interpretation and establishes shared expectations. The initial training is structured and detailed; giving your new employee the knowledge and confidence that your organization has a plan and intends to succeed.
The problem arises within many of small to mid-sized businesses. In most cases, these are owner-operated companies where the on boarding process and training falls to the owner or manager of a small sales team. Although the intentions are always good, regularly you’ll hear from the new sales person there was no process in place and they spent too much valuable time trying to figure out what to do and how to do it. Secondly, the new rep is often not sure what is expected of them in terms of direction and performance. “Welcome to the company. Here’s your price book, now go out and sell,” is not a recipe for success or a viable On Boarding Process!
Not having a process in place from day one results in the sales person losing direction and becoming frustrated, and the business owner being disappointed and fearing they have made the wrong hiring decision. So how do you fix this problem? First, regardless of the size of your organization, you must develop a written plan of action that lays out specific actions, goals and timelines for the first 30, 60 & 90 days, with a continuing plan for the first year. This may sound like a daunting task but it is actually much easier than you would think.
If you are the business owner & COE (Chief of Everything), you should look for outside expertise to assist you with this process. This can be an inexpensive way to develop a quick start program allowing you to remain focused on revenue driving activities. After all, you most likely hire an accountant, web-designer, and IT firm so why would you attempt to self manage the one area of your organization which directly affects your bottom line? Each dollar in lost sales opportunity is revenue you will never recover.
The complete 90 day plan needs to include goals, activities, product training, competition, prospecting, order processing, customer service, market evaluations, performance metrics, as well as simple things like getting to know your company and its people. Once you have a sales process in place, your new sales rep will be highly motivated, more confident and able to perform better. A detailed template you can use to create your 90 day sales rep success plan is included in the book, “Action Plan For Sales Management Success”.
Consider this analogy; You may be a good driver but will you take the time to teach your son or daughter to drive or would you rather they go to an accredited driving school? Besides, if they learn from a driving school, the insurance companies will provide a discount. It’s a better ROI for you and less stress for your kids. The same theory applies to your On Boarding Process. What’s the fastest way to make a new sales person profitable?
Studies show companies with a defined sales process consistently outperform those with no process. After all, as Harvey Mackay once said, “Failures don’t plan to fail; they fail to plan”.
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This article was originally posted by Robert J. Weese on March 12, 2013 at the B2B Sales Connection Blog
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